


The Pull On My Flesh

by KanraTheTeddyB3ar



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: First Work in LOTR, Gen, Multi, My first crossover, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, but not how long, i have a rough idea of where this is going, so buckle in if you decide to stay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 04:37:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20901755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KanraTheTeddyB3ar/pseuds/KanraTheTeddyB3ar
Summary: Because who said your destiny can’t lie elsewhere?Ceolwyn was a normal enough woman living in Rohan. Approaching her 25th year - and thus, certain spinster-hood - she knew to content herself with tending the lands surrounding her parents home. To kill her girl-hood dreams of adventuring and slaying beasts, like the warriors in her mother’s tales. Spinster-hood, it seemed, was her destiny.Until the day that she found herself awakening on the side of a stone road, surrounded by all manner of autumn leaves, a man speaking to her in a foreign tongue.





	The Pull On My Flesh

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that each chapter title will be in Dovahzul. I suggest heading to thuum.org and selecting their translator if you wish to know what each chapter is meant to say.
> 
> I want to be a faithful as possible to both TES and Tolkien's works, but I am one person, and everything I pull will be from the wikia for both franchises. Please forgive me if the canon I create in this fanfic weaves outside your creative limits.
> 
> I just thought it would be fun if some rando from Rohan woke up in Skyrim.

The winds blew harshly over the plains of the Westfold, grass and sparse trees alike seemingly bowing to its will. And within it all stood Ceolwyn, a woman of twenty-four years, swinging a branch in circles and calling out jeers as she herded goats in the plains above her parents home. Whenever a fight threatened to erupt, she stepped in, swinging her branch to scare the near-dueling goats to the sides. Such was life on the plains. Such was the only life she’d ever known, herding goats, tending the land, scaring away the occasional stray wolf.

It was, in most ways, a mundane existence. After all, Ceolwyn was no great lady residing in ancient Aldburg, or grand Edoras. She was no Shield-Maiden. She was simply a farm-girl, dismally approaching spinster-hood with every breath she drew. Wish as she might, there was no grand destiny for her. The gods, as was their will, would not be so kind as to give everyone some epic adventure.

Try as she might, those girl-hood dreams of epic adventures, exotic lands and people, never quite died. She longed to see what was outside of her little corner of the Westfold. To see Helm’s Deep, what remained of Isengard, to cross into Gondor and marvel upon Minas Tirith. To go to all the places that her mother spoke of in her tales, and see what remained of them. Did any of Rivendell remain, or had it all fallen away when the Elves left Middle Earth? Was the wonder of Lothlorien truly gone, or did a small part of it remain, stubbornly clinging to what had once been?

Had these places even existed in the first place, or were they too nothing more than myth? She could not say, but she could wonder. The wondering, it seemed, would need be enough. Perhaps, should she ever marry, a daughter or granddaughter may discover what she could not. Marriage seemed a rather moot point when one approached spinster-hood.

The ramming of horns reminded her where she was, and she swung the branch between the dueling goats. The herd itself seemed to run in opposite directions, and it took her much longer than was necessary to corral them all closer to home. Though they naturally ran where they wished in the rocky hills, they knew there was safety nearer her home than out on their own.

And towards her house she went, laying the herding branch against a wall, far away from the firewood. She’d learned that lesson two winters past when her father cut up the previous branch for wood, due to her leaving the branch near the gathered firewood. She didn’t find a replacement until last winter, after breaking her arm to keep the goats in line. They were still paying off the healer from the closest village for that…

Her mother, Herewyn, frowned deeply as Ceolwyn entered, and she knew it was no doubt about her dishevelled appearance. Ceolwyn said nothing, instead climbing the ladder to the attic that also had acted as her room all her life. As she washed her face, she found herself humming a tune. It wasn’t one she had ever heard anywhere but her dreams, and thus none but she knew the melody. Ofttimes, she found herself baffled about knowing a song so unfamiliar. And sometimes, if she listened carefully, she could almost hear the words on the wind.

She tried pronouncing them aloud, once, but had been caught by her father, Guthbrand. He had taken to calling her “his little witchling” after that, though the nickname died down as she neared marrying age. Now she wondered if he believed he’d jinxed his own child with what was meant as a harmless nickname. 

“Your father is returning soon with a match for you,” Her mother calls up the ladder. “I expect you to look decent.”

Ceolwyn rolled her eyes. As she washed her face, drying it with a spare cloth, she wondered just who this match would be. What boy from the village would her father come with now, having convinced them that she was the perfect wife? That’s all the men in the village were, after all - boys pretending they’re men. Especially the married ones.

She knew he meant well, and a part of her wished that she would finally make a match. She threw on her second best dress and kirtle, and deftly ran a wooden comb through her hair. Then, she prayed, to whatever gods may listen. Prayed the prayers that her mother would expect. That she not screw this up, that this boy be different.

But, mostly, she prayed to go to the land in her dreams. To a land of mythic beasts, and people so unlike herself lived. Places and faces that she barely recognized and yet knew all the same. She’d grown up watching those faces change and shift. In turn, she’d watched her own change and shift.

She finally exited the attic, with less grace than hoped. Her mother’s frown, father’s eyeroll. The boy from the village looked young… Much too young to know of her old nickname. But what her father thought to bring one who could barely grown his own chin hairs into their home hoping to make a match, she knew not. She would rather keep it that way, as well.

When all was said and done, the young boy left, her mother screeched like the Nazgul in her stories, and Ceolwyn left the house altogether. Over rocky hills she went, feet sure of her destination, even as her eyes sang with tears trying to shed. A special spot, just for her. 

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Ceolwyn let her gaze sweep across the view. The dips, the sudden rises. One of the streams, far off, blending with the horizon. And above, the stars, twinkling into existence as twilight gave way to the night. The night sky was a canvas upon which she wished to paint again and again. Worlds and adventures, love and loss, epic deeds and horrid catastrophes.

Eventually, her eyes closed. It was not the first time she had slept out there, it wouldn’t be the last. She’d always made sure to return in the morning, to rekindle the fire in the hearth and begin preparations for breakfast. This time, however, felt different. The songs on the winds were louder this night.

And as Ceolwyn, a simple farm-girl from Rohan, slipped into sleep, a shadow swept over her.


End file.
